Black and grey lotus flower tattoo with shaded petals and a long thin stem, placed on a person's back.

Lotus flower on the back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A single lotus bloom sits on pale skin, with loose outer petals, a shaded centre and fine stray lines curling out from the top. The stem trails down and to the right, tapering into a fine dotted line. The subject is set off against a plain, softly lit background, with the tattoo placed off-centre to the right.

Botanical Fine line Back Lotus Flower Petal Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Every August the lotus in the conservatory at Brinecroft House opened on the morning of the spring tide, and Mrs Pargeter insisted the lodgers be woken to see it. Nobody argued. Ruth, who had come for a week in March and stayed eleven months, was always first down the stairs with her cardigan half buttoned.

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The bloom was pale and sharp-edged, its outer petals curling back like the lips of teacups, its centre darkened where the light never reached. Mrs Pargeter's late husband had carried the bulb home from a nursery in Kew in a hatbox, wrapped in wet newspaper, and it had sulked for six years before it flowered. "It doesn't like being watched," she said, which was why the blinds were kept half down.

Ruth had a suitcase packed under her bed. The letter from the bank in Leeds had arrived on Tuesday, and she had read it twice on the landing without opening the second page. She stood by the glass while the petals loosened, and the fine threads at the crown lifted in a draught from the sea. Mrs Pargeter did not ask about the case. She cut one stem with the kitchen scissors and set it in a jam jar on the windowsill.

"You'll want that for the train," she said, and Ruth understood the jar was meant for her. The stem ran down the glass, dotted with the scars where old leaves had fallen away. Outside, the tide crept across the flats, and the bloom kept its dark heart turned towards the warmth of the stove.